A/N: Late upload. By a day or so. Sorry. I honestly haven't written anything for fanfiction in weeks. Blame college assignments, my own reading, and my own original-story writing.

This chapter. When I finally got around to planning things (slightly. I'm not a planner, I'm a do-er. Not an especially good trait in a writer, but, alas...) this and the next chapter were only supposed to be one chapter. Well. Um. I realized, very quickly, that this wonderful idea - in which "wonderful" is a matter of opinion, but it's how the story is continuing regardless of your decisions - would make for an exceptionally long chapter. So it's now two individual chapters. I think. I haven't actually finished the next chapter yet, but it's about a third done, so we'll see how long it gets.

So, if this one lags just a little...I promise, there will be action in the next chapter. And, beyond that, I promise (this is as much for me as it is for you, because if I don't promise it right here, I'll never do this when I get to finishing the next chapter) that an important plot piece (a.k.a. a big reveal...you might be able to guess it, just because) will take place in the next chapter! So...um, stay tuned? Read on? Fingers crossed?

Anyway. Review if you feel so inclined! Thank you for reading, favoriting, following, reviewing, and existing! Especially that last one!

Sometimes, there are nights when sleep comes easily, when it grips the dreamer and gives him or her a peaceful slumber.

This had not been such a night. Too much had happened the previous day, too much had been left unexplained. Despite the lethargy the group felt as a whole by early evening, when they had trudged up the stairs as a unit and gotten into the collection of beds and makeshift cots, sleep was elusive that night.

Thus, it was late morning when Tai woke up. He didn't want to. He wanted to curl up in his bed and forget that anything was happening. Sometime in the night he had fallen asleep for a few hours, but that hadn't been enough.

Somehow, however, it appeared that Tai was one of the earlier risers that morning. By the time he nearly tripped down the stairs and found his way into the garden, the only people outside were Izzy and Suki. The latter was doing some sort of martial arts practice with, of all things, a pair of golden fans. Tai decided not to ask; to be honest, Suki had scared him slightly the day before, with her attack on the opposing machines.

And Izzy…well, Izzy probably hadn't slept at all last night. After the message came from Gennai, Izzy wouldn't have fallen asleep unless someone (a.k.a. Sora) had commanded him to, and, unfortunately, no one had thought to make sure that the redhead had actually gone to bed.

Tai tried to think back to the previous night, to whether or not Izzy had come into the room that the two boys were sharing. He couldn't remember, but he was pretty sure that Izzy's allocated blankets had been untouched.

"So. Did you sleep here?" Tai asked, stretching for no other reason than that he was bored.

"For a few hours," was Izzy's reply. He was staring at his laptop, frowning.

"Any luck?"

"Not yet. I had to put the settings at a slower speed, to conserve more energy, but thus the program is running exceptionally slowly. It's managed a few words, but not enough to make sense, as of yet."

Tai nodded. The previous night, Gennai had sent an email.

As Mimi had commented, it would have been nice if he had sent it to them in a language they could actually read. Izzy had said that it was in Digicode, and that he had a program that could translate it…but, because Digicode wasn't a real language (at least as far as the computer was concerned), Izzy had been forced to create a root system in his program before he could start translating it.

And, because of Izzy's slight paranoia over the inability to recharge his laptop while in this world, he was keeping his laptop on energy-saving mode.

Izzy finally looked up from his laptop. "I was thinking…"

"Really? I never would have guessed."

Izzy shot Tai a glare before continuing. "We should go back and examine the areas where all the disarray happened yesterday."

"You mean, where Kari and I were practicing Firebending, and where Aang and Sokka were taken?"

"Precisely. I also want to take a look at the place where the 'fire' was. I've got a theory."

"Should I ask?"

"Not yet. The theory relies on technology that this world doesn't possess, but…well, if we're here, than it stands to reason that other things might have arrived as well."

Tai nodded, unsure of what he could say about Izzy's supposed theory. "What do you think Gennai was trying to send us?" He watched Suki do a complex backflip into a proposed attack at a bush.

"I'm not sure. It's not an especially long message, but the words that have decoded so far don't make a lot of sense. Here."

Greetings…afraid…news…simple…merging…Air…at…the…set…a…will…luck…

Izzy was right; that didn't make sense. Then again, a lot of the message still had to run through the processor, so it could just be a message about the weather.

Somehow, Tai doubted that.

There was also the matter with the Spirit World.

That was what had kept Katara up the previous night. Everything made sense, to an extent…after all, after their adventure a few years ago, they had become used to being attacked randomly in the presence of the Avatar.

But the Spirit World was…well, Aang made it sound as though it were rotting. Or breaking apart, piece by piece.

That wasn't a comforting thought, not in the slightest.

By the time that Katara went down the stairs and into the back garden, only Suki, Matt, and Joe were up. At least, that was who was in the garden.

There was a note, however, sticking out from under a plate of honey scones.

Katara read it; at least, she read the part in the language that she could understand. The other part was written by one of the Digidestined, she assumed.

By the time she got to the end of the letter, she was scowling. "Suki? Did you know about this?"

Suki, stretching on the grass, nodded. "They left about twenty minutes ago, on Appa."

"'Gone to see what happened yesterday. Be back after lunch. Sokka.'" Really. "Who else went?"

"Tai, Izzy, Aang, Sokka, and Toph," Matt answered, crossing his arms. "Aang said Appa would have trouble flying if anyone else went."

There were two thoughts going through Katara's mind at that. Three, technically, but two were important.

One was the fact that Toph had been up before she herself had been. That was relatively unheard of; but, Katara supposed, maybe Toph had also had a rough night. She might not freely admit her concern for anyone, but she didn't seem pleased to have been nearly left behind from all the action the previous day.

Two was Aang's lie. Appa could fly just fine with six or so people; he might not like to, but he was far from unable to. And it wasn't as though he were flying that great a distance. So Aang had lied, which wasn't a very Aang-like thing to do. That alone made Katara concerned.

The third, less important thought was that no one had thought to tell her that they were going. She expected that, if Sokka had heard her complain about that, he would mutter something about her having to be in charge, or something.

Still. She felt a little betrayed that they didn't inform her first.

"What's this part say?" she asked, pointing at the part written in the foreign language.

Suki and Matt laughed, while Joe just turned red.

"Izzy threatened Joe not to touch his laptop," Suki said, sounding especially pleased.

"Why?"

"He didn't appreciate Joe taking it yesterday," Matt responded, smirking.

"I didn't even open it!" Joe exclaimed to himself. "I just took it for reassurance."

"How's the message?" Katara asked. There was apparently a message coming through. Delivered, not by messenger hawk or by normal walking, but through a thin piece of a material that Toph didn't recognize (she had 'looked' at it one night, but didn't think it was stone or metal), that Matt had said was 'plastic.'

"Anyway, Izzy says that the email should finish decoding in a few hours," Matt said.

"Why didn't he just take it with him, then?"

"I think," Matt said thoughtfully, fingering at a hangnail, "he doesn't want to be tempted to use it. He's really worried about the lack of power outlets here."

A strange worry, but Katara decided not to judge. Instead, she shrugged, and helped herself to a scone. There wasn't that much else to do without Aang around.

"They're gone."

"That doesn't make sense."

"I didn't say it made sense. I'm just saying that they disappeared."

"Maybe it was aliens!"

"No."

"Or rock people."

"I told you, there's no such thing."

"Or…"

"No."

Tai tried to tune out Sokka and Toph's discussion. What had been first stated was true: the machines that had attacked them the previous day were no longer there. Appa had landed in the right location; any doubt was displaced by the scattered rocks littering the ground.

But the machines, from which the rocks had been launched, had vanished.

"Izzy? Any ideas?" Tai asked, looking at his friend.

Izzy shook his head. "Someone came during the night."

"But there aren't any footprints," Toph said bluntly.

"And the only tracks are from the machines coming, not from them leaving," Aang explained, riding a ball of air back to where the group was standing.

"So."

"So it was aliens!"

"No, Sokka."

"Okay, okay." Sokka scratched under his chin, then looked around. "Could an airship, or something, have grabbed them without making any new tracks?"

"But we told the guards on the city walls to come get us if they noticed anything unusual," Tai said, thinking back to when they had re-entered the city.

"Could they have just disappeared?" came a new voice. Pagumon. Tai wasn't pleased that Toph's In-Training Digimon was a Pagumon, but Sora had reminded him that it wasn't part of the villainous Pagumon village that they had seen during their first adventure. This Pagumon was innocent—at least, it was as innocent as an In-training Digimon could be.

Izzy contemplated Pagumon's question. "Disappearing is scientifically impossible. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. They would have had to be vaporized, which, considering the technology this world has, would be relatively improbable."

"I'm just saying," Pagumon said, using his ears to walk forward, "things disappear. And you guys appeared here, right? So your theory isn't really working, is it?"

"I…my theory is correct," Izzy said, looking annoyed. "Us coming here is comparable to adding a word to an already-existing document. The page itself isn't expanded."

"Couldn't you erase a word, though?" Tai asked.

Izzy seemed unhappy about the scrutiny of his theory, but he considered the possibility. "It's possible, I suppose. But it would require an energy source that this world isn't capable of producing at this time."

"We should move on," Aang said, jumping nimbly back onto Appa. The rest followed suit.

"Do you…well, do you guys think we should be doing something?" Mimi asked, as she stared at Izzy's laptop.

Matt shrugged. "Like what? Shop?"

Mimi shook her head. "No. I mean, that's a good idea, but…well, I meant practicing Bending. Or helping the others with their Digimon."

"Oh." Matt frowned. "I guess so." Mimi bounded away, looking at the ground. Probably trying to find a stone to practice on.

Matt had forgotten that they didn't know each other anymore. They had tried to keep in contact, as a group, but…well, that plan had fallen through within the first few months. Matt saw Tai and Sora in class, even talked a bit, but after a while, the reminder was painful. He saw T.K. regularly, of course; the two brothers had grown close after the first adventure. But he was the only one that regularly called.

Did the others even notice that they were pretending like they were a team again? Tai and Izzy seemed to be getting along, but, then again, their personalities hadn't changed that much. Joe was just Joe, slightly worrisome, slightly brave. The blue-haired boy was currently trying to Waterbend, with Katara leading him through the steps by a small fountain. Matt had seen T.K. change, so he couldn't entirely judge him.

It was the girls that had seemed the most different. Not Kari, exactly, but Sora and Mimi. Sora had started working for her mother in the flower shop, Matt remembered. But that didn't explain why she always seemed to be looking over her shoulder here. And Mimi…since when did she think of something better to do than shopping?

Matt wished he still knew his friends. They acted like a team, but it was obvious that the others—the other group—were more of a team than they were.

"Matt?"

He looked up. Katara was walking over, holding a cloth pouch. Probably water.

"Did you want to practice bending as well?" she asked. "I've got Joe working on collecting different amounts of water a time. You can do something similar, if you want."

Matt shrugged. "Okay."

"I mean, if there's something else you'd rather learn…"

"Nah, that's fine."

"Oh." Katara looked around. "Did I interrupt something? You look…thoughtful."

"That's just how he always looks," came a voice from behind him. T.K. Matt rolled his eyes as his brother came forward.

Katara watched as T.K. pestered Matt about an animal he had apparently just seen. They were so different, the two brothers…but, somehow, it was still clear that they were similar. Strange. Was that how people saw her and Sokka? Maybe their relationship was more like Tai and Kari's…

"Katara, can you teach me how to Airbend?" T.K. asked suddenly.

Katara blinked. "Um…not really. I mean, I understand the principle after watching Aang so much, but I'm not an Airbender."

"Why can Aang Bend everything?"

"He's the Avatar."

"That's supposed to be impressive, isn't it?" Matt asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well…yes," Katara admitted. "Only one person in a lifetime can control all four elements. He's the most important person in our world." It felt strange to admit that out loud, but it was the truth. At the very least, he was the most powerful person in the world.

T.K. sighed and sat himself on the ground. "I get that he's busy, but I want to learn how to Airbend. Sora," he called out to the redheaded girl, "you want to have lessons, too, right?"

She looked over and shrugged. "I suppose?"

There it was again. Katara really just didn't understand this group. She got that Tai was the leader - at least, she was pretty sure, although it felt like a democracy more than anything else - and that Izzy was the intelligence. But the others…they all offered something, but she wasn't sure what. And, while she and her own group were constantly chatting and working, the Digidestined were…separated.

When Toph had taken Mimi, Izzy, and Aang to practice, the remaining teenagers and children had…well, they had sat there, in the garden. T.K. had been describing something to Matt; Joe had been looking morosely at his tea cup; Sora had been looking at the plants; and Kari had been following Iroh around.

Those weren't strange things to do, and Katara supposed that the other group was having a culture shock, being thrown into a new world. But.

From what bits and pieces she understood, they had jumped between worlds before. So this shouldn't be so disquieting, really. So why did they all act as though they didn't know what to say to one another?

Even now, days later - well, the culture shock should have worn off by now, surely. But they were still separated. There was Matt and T.K. in front of her. Sora was standing by herself, watching Suki stretch - that girl had been practicing all morning. Mimi was Bending off in a corner, offering shrieks of excitement when she succeeded and moans of displeasure when she didn't. Joe was guarding Izzy's laptop thing while not touching it, and Kari was in the building, doing something or other.

They weren't acting like a team.

"Do you think—" Katara began, but something interrupted her. A strange beeping sound, coming from…

"Finally!" Mimi and Matt said at the same time as Joe jumped up and looked nervously at the laptop. "It's done!"

The place where Aang and Sokka had been taken was…well, Tai was disappointed. It was kind of normal. No, it was entirely normal.

"You're sure this is the place?"

"Appa recognizes it," Aang said. "Don't you, buddy?" He was patting the flying bison on the head as the group looked around; no one seemed especially willing to touch the ground just yet.

"I already told you, I didn't notice anything strange yesterday," Toph said, crossing her arms.

Izzy rolled his eyes. "Maybe it was too quick for you?"

"Nothing's too quick for me," she retorted. Izzy rolled his eyes again.

"There has to be a logical reason for why Aang and Sokka were targeted," he said, thoughtfully. "They just left your Digivices here?"

"I don't think it was a 'they,'" Aang said. "I only spoke to one person."

Pagumon and Dodomon jumped over to them. "I think Dodomon wants to Digivolve."

"Good for him," Tai said. "So, should we take a look inside the building, then?"

"There's nothing there," Toph insisted.

"Look, we need to do something," Tai said. "I don't care if it's empty. We need to make sure. Maybe Izzy and I will notice something that you guys didn't."

Once they were on the ground, they entered the building. Tai would have preferred to have gone more stealthily, but Toph was still insisting that nothing was there that shouldn't be there.

The inside was plain. A small hallway through several unoccupied rooms, down some stairs into the small cellar-like room that Aang had apparently been held in.

There was nothing there.

"Well. This was a waste of time."

Maybe they were looking in the wrong location. Izzy's program should have finished decoding the message by now…maybe it would give them a clue as to what to do next.

"Aang?" Tai called out as they, one by one, started back up the stairs into the fresher air. The Airbender was staring at the room, frowning; he didn't seem to be aware that the rest of the group was leaving. "You okay?"

"What?" he asked, blinking. "Yeah. Just a headache…but it's gone now."

"Okay, then," Tai said, unsure what to make of that. "Ready to go? I think T.K.'ll explode if you don't teach him Airbending soon."

Aang nodded and offered a small grin as he followed Tai out of the building.

Pagumon, Appa, and Dodomon were waiting for them at the entrance. Well, Tai assumed the new Digimon was what had once been Dodomon. The new one looked even more kitten-like than the lower form had been.

"Two things," Pagumon said, holding up his ears as if they were fingers.

"One, I'm Wanyamon," the Dodomon-turned-In-training said, jumping on Sokka.

"And two," Pagumon continued," there's someone here."

"What do you mean?" Tai asked, but the question didn't need to be answered. It was easily apparent what was there.

Digimon.

"Joe, get out of the way," Mimi said, her hands on her hips. That was more like how Matt remembered her.

"No way. I promised Izzy," Joe said, standing in front of the laptop as if he were warding off a feral animal. Then again, this was Mimi…

"Oh, come on!" the girl responded, rolling her eyes. "You're not the least bit curious about what it says?"

"No. I am not." Joe thought for a moment, then frowned. "Okay, maybe a little. A teensy, infinitesimal little amount of curiosity that's not enough to make me get on Izzy's bad side. Again."

"Joe, it's all right," Matt said, pulling the older boy away. "This could be important."

"Not you too! What happened to trusting your friends?"

"This is the fate of the world, Joe," Mimi responded, smirking at Matt. "Sometimes trust has to be…wait. Does anyone know Izzy's password?"

At this point, Matt was amused to note, the rest of the group had gathered. Zuko, Suki, Katara, and Mai were staring from one side; T.K., Kari, and Sora were on the other side, looking at the proceedings with curiosity.

"A…password?" Zuko asked. "Like, to get into a secret club or something?"

"…sure," Matt responded. "Close enough."

"Should we be hacking into Izzy's computer?" Sora asked, holding her arms. "I mean, Joe's right. We shouldn't be interfering with his stuff."

"Sora, what if this is about how to get back to the Digiworld?" Mimi said, her eyes gleaming in an almost manic light. She didn't seem to realize it, but she was actually bending some rocks around her body, in mini spirals. "What if this email has information on how to see Palmon and Biyomon again?"

Or Gabumon, Matt couldn't help but add. Or Patamon or Agumon or any of their partners. Matt wouldn't even mind seeing Ogremon right then. Three years had been too long. Three years ago, they had had an adventure, and then been sent away, promised that they wouldn't be needed again.

And then, when they were needed, they were sent somewhere else. Matt gritted his teeth at the memory. It just wasn't fair.

Mimi was right. If this email brought them any closer to returning to the Digiworld…to returning to Gabumon…then it would be worth it.

"Anyone? Any ideas?" Mimi asked, typing randomly with two fingers at the keyboard, Joe having finally given up and let her pass.

"'Prodigious?'" T.K. asked.

"Maybe…oh, never mind," Sora muttered. "I was going to suggest his birth date, but that seems too obvious."

"How do you spell 'prodigious?'" Mimi asked. However, even when they had correctly entered it in, the screen remained locked.

"Try his Digimon," Kari suggested.

"Yeah! Tentomon, or Kabuterimon, or…MegaKabuterimon! Or Motimon," T.K. listed off enthusiastically.

'Tentomon' was the password.

"'Message decoded,'" Matt read over Mimi's shoulder. "Read as the following:" And as he read out loud, he tried not to notice everyone listening, even though they were. Even Team Avatar was leaning closer, trying to read what was on the screen before Matt got to saying it aloud.

Greetings! I'm afraid I have bad news. Luckily, there is also good news. The former is simple: the worlds are merging faster than I would have expected. They must not fully connect.

The good news—or bad, if you look at it in the right way, I suppose—is that I've found a prophecy that I believe pertains to your situation right now! It reads: "Upon the connection of the impossible, a light will appear that two must harness. Four codes will be taken and melded together. Only then can the two worlds become separate entities once again."

I've no idea what the codes are or how it will work, but I'm sure you'll do just fine.

Gennai

Good luck, Digidestined from both worlds.